Two days on a road that has existed for a thousand years

There is a thread that runs through the Brembana Valley from north to south. It is called Via Mercatorum, and it is a medieval road that connected Bergamo to the Grisons and central Europe for centuries. Merchants, mail carriers, knights walked along it. People who had something important to deliver somewhere walked on it.

Today you are walking there. And this, if you think about it, is not so different.

This two-day itinerary follows - in part - that ancient road. Five places to visit on foot or nearly so, in order: from the valley entrance to the upper valley, then back down through quarters the modern world has forgotten to reach. It is a slow journey by choice, built on stones worth looking at.

Day 1 - morning: Attone Bridge and the Customs House (Ubiale Clanezzo)

Before entering the Brembana Valley, stop at Ubiale Clanezzo. Here, at the confluence of the Imagna stream with the Brembo, is Attone Bridge: a single arch in rough stone, built in the 10th century at the behest of Attone di Guiberto, count of Lecco. For very long years the only access route to the Brembana Valley passed through here, and the bridge played a key role in trade links with the transalpine: from this valley it was possible to reach the San Marco Pass and then, through the Valtellina, to reach the Grisons.

Today the bridge is isolated from modern roads - and that is its good fortune. It can be reached on foot, surrounded by greenery. In the central part you can still notice the crenelated pillars that once supported the gates that closed the passage.

Next to the bridge, still standing, is the Customs House: a sturdy square tower, formerly a checkpoint for transits between the two banks and the seat of the “gabella” that imposed duties on trade. Anyone who wanted to go up the valley had to pass through here and pay. A thousand years later, passing through is free and worth the trip.

Day 1 - afternoon: Cornello dei Tasso

Leave your car in Camerata Cornello and walk up. Cornello dei Tasso can only be reached that way - and that is exactly the point. The name Cornello first appeared in a parchment from 1309, and probably derives from “corna,” which in Bergamascan dialect means “rock, stone”: the hamlet is located on a rocky outcrop abutting the Brembo River.

In medieval times Cornello was an important center of trade and passage of people and goods, thanks to the Via Mercatorum that connected Bergamo to Valtellina. At the end of the 16th century, its fortunes began to decline following the construction of the new valley floor road, the Via Priula, which did not touch Cornello: the village became isolated, losing its commercial function. That isolation favored the preservation of the original urban structure, which still appears today in its medieval physiognomy.

Walking under the stone and wood arcaded street, among the coats of arms of the Tasso family painted on the walls, is like being inside a 15th-century photograph - except that the photograph is real and you can sit in it.

The Tasso family is not only famous for the poet Torquato. Starting in the 16th century, some of its members managed the imperial post of the Habsburgs. In 1512 Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg granted the family the title of nobility, allowing the coat of arms of the family-a small yew tree and post horn-to be embellished with the imperial eagle. In the seventeenth century the Badgers of Germany were granted the princely title, changing the name to Thurn und Taxis, and continued to run the post office until the second half of the nineteenth century, when the service was nationalized.

The hamlet is home to the Badger and Postal History Museum, which houses, among other things, an 1840 letter franked with the Penny Black, the first postage stamp issued in the world. Free admission for individual visitors.

Day 1 - late afternoon: the Borgo di Bretto

Just a few minutes from Cornello, heading up north, are the two districts of Bretto Alto and Bretto Basso. Not everyone looks for them - and that is a shame. Bretto has linked its history to that of a branch of the Tasso family: the Tasso di Bretto who settled in the hamlet in the 14th century, breaking away from the original Tasso del Cornello stock. The village still bears the tangible signs of the family's presence: the stately palace at the entrance to Bretto Alto, with frescoes including the Tasso coat of arms, the Church of St. Ludwig of Toulouse granted in juspatronage to the family, and the old Tasso palace in Bretto Basso, on which the coat of arms in the center of the main facade is still visible.

Inside the church are several 16th-century religious frescoes by artists from Averara. During the 2008 restoration, numerous bones belonging to a group of people who died as a result of the seventeenth-century plague were discovered. The chapel can be visited by reservation by writing to the Badger Museum.

Bretto is silent, almost motionless. Ideal for the last light of the afternoon.

Day 2 - morning: the Via Porticata of Averara

Heading north up the Brembana Valley, one comes to Averara, a small town of about 180 inhabitants. In its proportions it is not immediately guessed how important it was. Averara was the chief town of the entire valley of the same name and was the last village placed on the Via Mercatorum leading to Valtellina, and as a border land it was equipped with a customs house and two towers for preventive purposes.

The heart of the village is the arcaded street: characterized by ten wide arcades, above which rise three stories of buildings. The arcades have ancient origins, built between the late 14th and early 15th centuries, and have retained the appearance of the period: the cobblestone pavement, wooden beams and two stone lanes for the passage of carts.

The coats of arms of the Baschenis, Bottagisi, Guerinoni, Migazi, Sonzogni and other families who had an active part in the history of the valley are still visible on the inner side of the portico pillars. Averara guaranteed a covered space for storing goods in bad weather and accommodation possibilities for extended stops. Travelers and merchants found shelter there, animals could rest; there were taverns, stables and workshops.

Walking under those arches today, in spring, with the light filtering in at an angle - it is one of those things that cannot be explained well in words.

Day 2 - afternoon: the districts of Valbrembilla

The last stage is not a monument. It is a landscape. Descending toward the valley floor, the Brembilla Valley opens onto a succession of small rural hamlets that seem to have stopped in the middle of the twentieth century-in the best sense of the word.

Farmers' houses have 16th-century origins and were often isolated due to the difficulties of communication routes; this meager urban structure inevitably affected the customs of the people and the architecture of rural buildings. Cobblestones, wooden loggias, fountains, wash houses, tiny chapels: each contrada is a world unto itself.

Among the most striking is the contrada Cà Zanardi, where one ascends for a hundred meters or so on a remarkably well-made pavement to the Colle dei Gatti. The 1736 patriarchal farmhouse has particularly striking architecture, and on the central building stands out-although in need of restoration-the 1700 fresco of the Madonna and Child, St. Roch and Other Saints.

There is not much to do here in the traditional sense of tourism. There is a lot to look at, a lot to walk slowly. And that, on some weekends, is exactly what is needed.

Where to sleep and eat